June 8 2022
I’ve been digging around, hoping to get some information about Canada’s oldest known hockey sticks. I want to know what types of wood they were made from. The sticks I mention below were all discussed in my nomination essay to the Hockey Hall of Fame.
So, the Nova Scotia archives checked in just this morning. They said they don’t actually keep physical inventory, such as hockey sticks, so they couldn’t answer my question.
Montreal’s McCord museum recently confirmed that they don’t know what type of wood the McCord stick is made from. Dated to around 1878 – five years after the birth of ice hockey in Montreal – it is Montreal’s oldest known hockey stick.
The Canadian Museum of History doesn’t seem to know what type of wood the Moffatt stick is made of either. The museum paid $300,000 for the Moffatt stick in 2015, which had been scientifically dated to 1835-38. At the time it was the world’s oldest known ‘hockey stick’.
I haven’t looked into the Walker stick which, like the Moffatt stick, comes from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. There’s a good very chance that the Walker stick is older than the Moffatt stick, but we can’t say for sure.
We can be say that the Laval stick is older than both the Moffatt and Walker sticks. Scientifically dated to 1776, plus or minus 20 years, it would have been (steam!) crafted no later than 1796. The Laval stick is likely to be much more than “the world’s oldest known ice hockey stick,” as it is commonly called. It was likely first crafted for the Mi’kmaq game, oochamkunutk, and later obtained by a colonist through trade – well before the emergence of the commercial hockey stick market.
Unfortunately, I have been unable to track down someone who has identified the Laval stick’s wood type as of yet. After a few failed attempts I have one source to go and retain a sliver of optimism – pun intended – because the “Laval” people are trying to be helpful.
Why is the wood type question important?
For starters, because historians will likely agree that Montreal’s McCord stick was probably crafted by a member of the Mi’kmaq First Nation and shipped from Halifax – young Canada’s main ice hockey stick market in the 1860-80 era, if not the only such market of consequence. If the McCord stick is made from the same kinds of wood that the Mi’kmaw made their sticks from, this prevailing view of history would be strengthened. If found to have been made from a different kind of wood, it follows that Halifax’s hockey stick market may have had a stronger colonial influence during this time than is generally believed.
The same question should be asked of the other sticks for a different reason. Positive confirmations of the Laval, Moffatt and Walker sticks would suggest a colonial-indigenous stick trade that preceded the introduction of the commercial hockey stick market by decades and up to a century.
Finally, we should also ask if these various wood types can or could be found at Tuft’s Cove in Halifax-Dartmouth, or within close proximity. A Mi’kmaq settlement existed there prior to Halifax’s founding in 1749 which became a major stick-making centre the latter part of the 1800s.
This topic is discussed at some length in the video, The Game of Hockey- A Mi’kmaw Story.
The Four Stars of Early Ice Hockey 